Albion College

About: Albion College is a education organization based out in Albion, Michigan, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Higher education. The organization has 485 authors who have published 754 publications receiving 20907 citations.

Mitosis and Meristems

Abstract: Cell division is a fundamental requirement for growth and development of the plant body. Aside from certain stages of sexual reproduction, all production of new cells is based on a process called the cell cycle in which nuclear division (mitosis) and cell division (cytokinesis) produce two identical daughter cells. Mitosis has four stages and relies heavily on cytoplasmic microtubules for defining the plane of division and directing the entire process of chromosome movement and segregation. Meristems are regions in plants in which mitosis takes place. Apical meristems are at the tips of shoots and roots and contribute to increases in length. Lateral meristems are responsible for increases in girth. Other meristems—intercalary, pericycle, fascicular—are zones of active mitosis and contribute to growth in various plant organs.

Shifting Terrain: Styles of Liberalism, Periodization, and Levels of Analysis

Abstract: The appraisal of background conditions is an important but often neglected element of political interpretation. Influential interpretations of American politics, such as Louis Hartz's The Liberal Tradition in America, dismiss the importance of changing political contexts. Set in terms of the debate over “American exceptionalism,” this article explores changes in political mood in the United States during the twentieth century. Hartz is not wrong to assert the persistence of a uniform underlying political culture in the United States, nor the lasting impact of Lockeanism in establishing boundaries to possibility—for the left and the right. But a finer-grained appraisal of the interaction between political-cultural ethos and activism is possible. As David Greenstone rightly argued, contestation still occurs within a predominantly liberal society. This article contends that the character of this contestation is determined by the nature of political periods produced by interpretations of the underlying Lockean bedrock by political actors. It makes explicit that Hartz and Greenstone were operating at different levels of analysis—Hartz established the persistence of dedication to Lockean liberal tenets in the deep structure of American politics, while Greenstone's interpretation established a meso-level of analysis, above this deep structure. The present article adds temporal periodization to this meso-level. Political actors make history upon a stage received from the past—in the United States, the Lockean bedrock—but they inflect this stage with crucial interpretations that set or stretch the limits of political expression in a new period. It discerns four varieties of liberalism—economic liberalism, social state liberalism, social movement liberalism and cold war liberalism—that have interpreted the deep structure differently since the 1920s. It also suggests that sensitivity to historical changes in political mood does not necessitate repudiation of Hartz's thesis of Lockean liberal predominance in the United States.

Relationships Between Organic Matter Contents and Bacterial Hydrolytic Enzyme Activities in Soils: Comparisons Between Seasons

Abstract: Microbial assemblages in terrestrial environments, such as soils, utilize hydrolytic enzymes to function biologically in various environments including for the degradation of organic carbon compounds and cycling of nutrients that eventually contributes to the ecological and agricultural productivity of such environments. In this study, 3 soil types (i.e., sandy, loamy and clayey) with varying characteristics were collected within the premises of Albion College in Michigan, with the goal of comparing the occurrences of indigenous bacterial populations and their respective hydrolytic enzyme activities in the soils. The soils were examined for their organic matter content (% OM), while bacterial abundance was determined by combinations of viable counts and nucleic acid staining, and enzymatic activities measured using fluorescein diacetate (FDA) analysis. Results from the study showed loamy soil to have a significantly higher % OM at 30% on average as compared to 2.5% and 6.6% recorded in the sandy and clayey soils. Comparatively, bacterial numbers (both viable and total counts) were also significantly higher in loamy soils than the other two soils. The same trend was observed for FDA analysis with higher fluorescein released in the loamy soil relative to the two other soils. Overall, clear differences were observed in the relationships between % OM and bacterial numbers and hydrolytic enzyme activities among the three soil types and between the two seasons examined. The results suggest that % OM strongly influences both bacterial abundance and hydrolytic enzyme activities in loamy soil and less so in both sandy and clayey soils examined in the study. This study in conclusion revealed potential strong relationships between soil organic carbon and indigenous bacterial populations as well as their FDA activities in various soil types.

Using Semiotics to Teach Rational Numbers to Prospective Elementary School Teachers

Abstract: Prospective elementary mathematics teachers should be able to understand how their future students understand number concepts. A difficult concept is that of rational numbers. Rational numbers often have complicated means of representation, signifiers and signifieds, making them difficult for students to understand and teach. In this paper, we describe how one teacher integrates a theory of semiotics when instructing prospective elementary school teachers about rational numbers. We propose that by teaching prospective teachers about semiotics, connections between signs and units are made explicit and prospective teachers will be more equipped to approach the instruction of rational numbers to future students.